ing that I can offer, in order that you may appear to-
day like yourself, especially since you have met with a lady so amiable
and illustrious as this." (The subtle old dog knowing perfectly well
what she was all the time.) "By the Lord above," said the nobleman, "the
next greatest pleasure, to looking at her beauty, is to listen to your
obliging discourse; I would rather pay you usury than obtain money gratis
from any one else." "Of a surety, my lord," said one of his principal
associates, who was called flatterer, "my uncle shows you no respect but
what is fully your right; but with your permission, I will assert, that
he has not bestowed half the commendation on her ladyship which she
deserves. I cannot myself produce, and I will defy any man to produce
one lovelier than herself, in the whole street of Pride; nor one more
gallant than you, my lord, in the whole street of Pleasure; nor one more
courteous than you, dear uncle, in the whole street of Lucre." "Oh, that
is only your good opinion," replied the lord, "but I certainly believe
that two never came together with more mutual love than we." As they
proceeded, the crowd increased, and every one had a fair smile and a low
bow for the other, and forward they ran to meet each other with their
noses to the ground, like two cocks going to engage. "Know now," said
the angel, "that you have not yet seen a _bow_ here, nor heard a _word_,
that did not belong to the lessons of Hypocrisy. There is not here one,
after all this courtesy, that has a farthing's worth of love for the
other; indeed they are for the most part enemies to one another. The
nobleman here is only a butt amongst them, and every one has his hit at
him. The lady has her mind fixed upon his _grandeur_ and his _nobility_,
whereby she hopes to obtain precedence over many of her acquaintances.
The miser has his eye upon his _land_, for his own son; and the others,
to a man, on the money, which he is to receive as her portion, because
they are all his subjects, that is, his merchants, his tailors, his
shoemakers, or his other tradesmen, who have arrayed him and maintained
him in all this great splendour, without yet obtaining one farthing, nor
any thing but fair words, and now and then, threats perhaps. Now observe
how many masks, how many twists, Hypocrisy has given to the face of the
truth? He is promising grandeur to his love, having already disposed of
his land; and she is promising portion and pur